Tuesday, May 1, 2018

There's No Place Like Homeland

I had only one episode of Homeland to watch before the
finale, but I couldn't stay awake, so I gave up. But when I woke up at
4 and was, as usual, wide awake, I decided to watch it. Yes! I
finished. So I went to check and see when the finale was going to be shown
and discovered it had already aired and was there OnDemand for me, so I had
to watch that too.

There is absolutely no question about whether or not
there will be a Season 8 or there will be fans storming the Showtime offices
and demanding one.

This means, though, that I have binge watched all 12 episodes
of this show in 2-1/2 days. I haven't watched so completely since I
tried to catch up on 5 seasons of The Sopranos.

Of course the nice part about binge watching is the instant
gratification of solving that cliff hanger that most episodes end on!
But that's one huge cliff that the finally left us all with!

Last night we went to the last (of 3) night of the Alfred
Hitchcock film festival.

The previous two weeks we have seen a movie each time,
Saboteur and Shadow of a Doubt. I had not seen Saboteur
and was happy to see it. I had seen Shadow of a Doubt
but had forgotten most of it, especially how it ended.

Both movies and the cozy, fun atmosphere in the showing, were
such fun we decided to return for the last one. This week it was 3
episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the TV anthology which ran
from 1955 to 1965.

We hadn't planned to go to it, but we enjoyed all the
background information that our friend Derrick Bang gave as an intro to each
film and thought it would be fun to hear what he had to say about this week
too.

I have strong memories of watching Alfred Hitchcock
Presents when it was on, but as I do a little research I realized that
most of the ones I remember were actually Twilight Zone shows
(like William Shatner on a plane terrified by a creature on the wing

or Burgess Meredith as a myopic misanthrope who wants
everyone to go away so he can spend his time reading, then after there is
some sort of disaster that kills everybody and leaves the world in rubble,
he is delighted that it's only himself and books...and then drops his
glasses and breaks them.

But the one I remember the most was a Hitchcock
episode and, as it turns out, one of the favorites. I was pleased that it
was one of the three that Derrick chose to show -- the one where an angry
wife kills her husband by hitting him over the head with a frozen leg of
lamb, then cooks it and serves the roast to the police who are searching the
house for the murder weapon. Favorite line from that is from one of
the investigators, sitting with all the police, enjoying their meal, saying
"I have a feeling the weapon is right under our noses." Slow pan in to
picture of the wife, sitting and smiling.

So the Hitchcock festival is now over. They do another
film festival in the fall and I think we will be looking forward to it.